OLPC waves goodbye to AMD for new XO laptop, adopts VIA chip

The One Laptop Per Child Project has announced plans for a hardware refresh. …

The One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project, which builds low-cost mobile computing devices for students in developing countries, has announced plans to update its XO laptop. The new model, which has been dubbed XO generation 1.5, will include a VIA processor instead of the aging AMD Geode processor that is included in the current XO model.

OLPC has faced many challenges since its inception and was recently forced to make massive cuts due to a decline in sponsorship and the failure of its second G1G1 fundraising effort. The organization largely refocused its efforts on creating a reference design for the XO 2, which will have dual touchscreens, possibly an ARM processor, and a target price of $75 per unit. The XO 1.5 is a less ambitious undertaking and will bring a much-needed incremental improvement to OLPC's hardware while the XO 2 is under development.

The hardware refresh was announced by John Watlington, OLPC vice president of hardware, on the project mailing list last week. He says that the refresh is unrelated to OLPC's ongoing 2.0 design activities and it will not include changes to the XO laptop's exterior design. According to Watlington, the update will lower the price of the XO and include better components while retaining the current level of energy efficiency.

The new processor is a VIA C7-M, which can be clocked at up to 1GHz. The new XO model will also include a VX855 MSP, a low power chipset component that is capable of handling high-definition video. The memory has been upped to 1GB and the built-in storage will be 4GB of NAND flash. OLPC plans to make bare-board prototype models available to developers by the end of May.

"OLPC is excited to announce that a refresh of the XO-1 laptop is in progress. In our continued effort to maintain a low price point, OLPC is refreshing the hardware to take advantage of the latest component technologies," Watlington wrote. "We're excited to be finally able to make this news public. While members of the technical team have been working on this for several months, it was not until last week that we could with any certainty say that we were going to refresh the hardware and what that refresh was likely to be."

The improved parts will help boost the XO's competitive edge and could make it a more compelling option for government buyers. It's still unclear, however, if the move will buy enough time for the organization to finish designing the XO 2, the next major upgrade. OLPC has appeared increasingly directionless in the wake of its repeated strategy changes and reorganization attempts. Perhaps the XO 1.5 will help the organization get back on track.